Traveling and Touring ( #AtoZChallenge )

        Once when I was a kid someone told me to "collect my wits"--that's when I started my collection of Mad magazines and joke books...

       

Traveling and Touring Things


         Travel mementos can be found throughout our house both in the open and stored away.  Refrigerator magnets, curios, pictures, or travel books are likely to be found in every room of our house.  While doing my garage cleaning I ran across a number of things related to my travels or just related to the subject of travel.

        As I've mentioned here before, I grew up in a show biz family who frequently traveled for our performances.  Back in those days I began collecting matchbooks, soap bars, and other freebies labeled from establishments that offered them.  Those items actually got used up after I entered adulthood, but I still have a respectable postcard collection that I started when I was a young boy. 

        Postcard racks used to be prominently displayed in restaurants, variety stores, and any other places that might be frequented by travelers.  When I was an avid collector and cards might be something like six for a quarter, I would buy several from whatever area we were in at the time.  I'd also pick up post cards from motels where we stayed and other places that offered free cards.  Over several years I accumulated a great many cards.

        The bulk of my postcards are in a box in my closet, but I often will notice postcards in drawers or other boxes.  When I was organizing our garage back in December, I ran across a lot of cards which I kept aside and placed in a box to be further sorted in the upcoming months. 

         The post cards are merely one more example of the travel things I have around the house.  In the garage especially there are a great many maps, travel directories, and tour schedules from my years on the road managing shows.    Most of this has been well organized and fairly neatly boxed--it will be easy to go through with some probably minor culling.  Old hotel directories will likely go as will a few of the maps.  Not all of them--but some of them.

         There were always maps in my life and I became a proficient map reader at a young age.  Map reading became a past time for me sometimes just for fun and other times because I was traveling and needed to see where I was going.  At home I can spend a good bit of time studying maps.  I enjoy studying how highways are routed and interwoven.  I like to think about the little towns where I may likely never go or remember the places I have already been.  When people used to tell me that they got confused and couldn't read a map I was somewhat baffled.  Now this response makes more sense.

         Now most of us probably use GPS for telling us where to go.  Sometimes my wife tells me where to go.   Still I like the visual aid of a good map.  And suddenly an idea popped into my head:   I should draw a map of my house and where the main cache of certain things (postcards for instance) are.   This would be good if I started  developing memory problems and needed a prompt.  It would also be helpful when I die so whoever was left could figure things out more easily.

         Not a bad idea perhaps.   But actually I hate thinking about stuff like that.

       Do you tend to collect a lot of souvenirs from your travels?   When is the last time you sent someone a postcard?   Are you good at reading a map?